In large welding operations, such as those present in the automotive industry, high flexibility operations are a significant concern. Flexibility is pursued by creating tools and operations that may be utilized for welding several different components and by simplifying the equipment and devices to be more versatile and less costly.
Many tooling efforts have been developed for creating more flexible welding operations regarding structural chassis frames, specifically, for those components that are attached to the main side rails, such as steel brackets. Welding operations usually demand specialty tools. In the case of the brackets, it is common practice to secure brackets in their desired position by using a lineal pneumatic arm, which keeps the bracket at the desired position by pressing the bracket into the component to which it will be welded. This less flexible tool is a dedicated fixed unique station that slides and then presses the bracket against the side rail.
In high volume welding operations, such as those present in the automotive industry, where several formed components proceed into welding processes, it is common to find variations in geometry of materials according to specification tolerances. To optimize the joining between components, the welding processes must guarantee that a variation within formed components does not affect the welding precision and therefore, it is common to make adjustment in the tooling placement.
Tools designed to place a component, such as a bracket, into a desired position by utilizing force, such as pneumatic force, are usually oversized and expensive tools.
The present disclosure describes a positioning tool to guarantee that an automotive component, such as bracket, is placed within a desired position without the need of utilizing oversized and costly specialty tooling.